


Strange and Simple

by slamncram



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bossy Elias Bouchard, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Haircuts, Lap Sitting, Lonely Eyes, M/M, Or as close as it gets with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slamncram/pseuds/slamncram
Summary: It's become a kind of ritual. Peter gets back from the Tundra, Elias makes disparaging comments about life at sea, wine comes out, and the scissors follow close behind.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 121





	Strange and Simple

The first time this had happened, it had been the product of frustration. They had both hit a wall, Elias a bit harder than Peter, and by the end of it, somehow, they had reconciled amid the tufts of Peter’s hair under Elias’ loafers.

Elias remembered it clearly. The argument, his jabs, Peter’s challenge. He remembered it every time they came to this again. Something had changed since that first time; Elias had quietly made the choice to purchase proper supplies to make this rare occurrence simpler, including a proper pair of shears, and when Peter sat down, this time, it was in a much more appropriate chair than the leather one, placed carefully in the middle of Elias’ kitchen, the lighting in here much better than the lamps in his study had been.

Peter would have been happy to take care of his haircut himself. He had, for a long time, before Elias had chosen to take up the duty. Now, it tended to be _Elias’_ task. Of course, that meant that Peter’s moments of proper hair maintenance were few and far between. Sometimes he came back to London after only a few weeks away. Sometimes it was months before Elias saw him again. Those were the times when Peter would take matters into his own hands and when Elias got him sitting in the kitchen, he would, more often than not, be doing damage control on what the other had done to his own fringe.

Tonight was one of those times.

Elias stood in the kitchen, glass of red wine in one hand, looking Peter over as the other sat in front of him. He’d taken off his shirt, changed into soft pants, and tossed a towel around his shoulders. He looked comfortable, Elias thought. Comfortable and annoyingly attractive, sitting there, at ease.

It had been seven months, two weeks and one day since they had last said goodbye. Elias had played cool, refused to let Peter leave with even a shred of his misery to feed his god. That didn’t mean he hadn’t missed him, every one of those months.

And how did Peter greet him, after all that time?

By sitting there, the object of all Elias’ pent-up attraction, with a grown out fringe that he’d once again, cut straight across.

“Do you know how infuriating it is for me to _know_ that you do that annoy me, dear?” he asked, finally, setting the glass down on the pristine black marble counter top. He’d kept his tone light, conversational. He flipped open the case that held the expensive Kamisori shears he’d bought – on Peter’s dime – for this task. The engraved grips caught in the light as Peter laughed.

“Don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Elias,” he said, just as light, feigning innocence they both knew he had no right even pretending to possess.

Picking up the shears, Elias turned them over in his hand, looking Peter over again. He obliged and wet his hair before coming to the kitchen, and though he’d towelled off the excess, there was still a thin trail of water sliding down his neck, curving towards the dip of his collarbone. Another thing Elias was counting as unfair in the wake of how long it had been that they’d been apart.

“The faux confusion isn’t a good look on you.” He insisted, tucking the shears into the pocket of the apron he’d donned – another purchase on Peter’s dime meant to make all of this simpler, and to spare Elias being covered in the itchy hair clippings when he was finished. The shears fell, a heavy weight, next to the comb he’d tucked there after putting the apron on. Moving around behind Peter, he drew his fingers back through his damp, fog-white hair, the thick strands falling through them easily.

“You cut your fringe again.” He continued. After the first time, he had done his research, and now, instead of cutting through the thick layers of Peter’s hair haphazard, he gathered sections of it, clipping them off, out of his way for the moment.

All the knowledge the Eye could give him, he knew, was no substitution for the actual training it took to become a barber, but he had gleaned enough to, in the least, be better than himself in frustration, or Peter in front of a mirror on the Tundra, ‘ _making due’_.

“It was blocking my sight.”

Elias hummed, sectioning more hair with the end of the comb. “I would think that would be an asset, as an Avatar of the Lonely.”

He didn’t need to see Peter’s face to know the other was scowling.

“You _would_ like the image of me captaining a ship, looking like a sheepdog.”

At the image, Elias laughed, pausing with Peter’s hair between his index and middle fingers. “Honestly, it might be an improvement.”

Peter huffed. “If that’s the case, then why are we here?” He gestured, clearly meaning to take in the kitchen, the chair, the expensive shears, and the floor where the first snips of Peter’s hair were falling.

Separating the hair and lining the points of his shears up to snip, Elias answered.

“I said it would be an improvement, I didn’t clarify over what.”

“Ah.” The sound carried such weight that Elias could _feel_ Peter’s sarcastic nod, even if the other hadn’t actually moved. He knew better than to move. “You’re still hung up on my cutting my own fringe.”

Elias made an exasperated sound.

“Yes. Because you cut them straight across. Likely with a pair of kitchen scissors. In the dark, I hope. And I only say that because there’s a fairly noticeable slant to them. You look like a 13 year old girl making her first attempt at bangs without mummy’s say-so.”

Peter was laughing, again, but still polite enough not to be jostling Elias as he continued his trimming.

“I didn’t know it would annoy you so much.”

Stepping to Peter’s side, Elias put one hand on his hip while he raised his eyebrow.

“Again, no one in this room is fooled, Peter.”

The other man grinned, and Elias shook his head, stepping back behind him to pick up where he’d left off. After a few minutes, Peter sighed, clearly not as content with the silence as Elias assumed he would be.

“You’re a touch more annoyed about it than I thought you would be, in my defence.”

“Oh?” Elias asked, pulling one of the clips from Peter’s hair and putting the comb through it. He repeated the motion, trapping the hair between his fingers. “After seven months away, you thought what I’d like is to find you making more work for me as a joke?”

“Let’s not forget which one of us insists on these little moments, dear.” Peter’s voice was quiet. Not quite soft, not quite a warning. “I was perfectly fine taking care of all of this myself.”

Elias bit his tongue.

They’d had this argument before. Despite everything – their individual plans, the Lonely, the fact that this kind of attachment and weakness was never a good thing – they’d had this argument.

It was weak of Elias to want a kind of devotion from Peter that the other could never and would never give. It was weak to crave closeness.

But they’d had the argument, and, despite everything, Peter had relented. That, more than anything, proved that he cared for Elias in a way he shouldn’t have.

Peter’s relenting was what had led them to moments like this. He’d given Elias an inch. A few inches, in fact.

Elias could not expect him to give a mile, but it didn’t stop him from trying to take it, now and again.

“Don’t people comment on it?” Elias finally continued, lighter, not nearly as confrontational as he’d been just a few moments before.

“Well, see, that’s the thing about being an Avatar of the Lonely, isn’t it? I’m not spending energy worrying about being seen, because I’m often not.”

Peter wasn’t meaning to push further under Elias’ skin. At least, Elias didn’t _think_ he was. The first night back, they usually tried to keep from agitating each other too much. It was one of those unspoken agreements they had.

One they didn’t _always_ follow, so when Elias spoke next, he did it carefully, slowly pulling the comb through Peter’s tidied hair.

“Yes. By every eye, including mine.”

He stepped around to Peter’s side, and put a hand on his shoulder, comb held deftly between his index and middle fingers as he swung a leg over both of Peter’s. Settling in the bigger man’s lap, he tapped the point of the closed shears against his bare chest.

“But tonight, I can see you and I don’t want to look at this high school fringe trim any longer.”

Whatever fire for argument there had been in Peter had died in his eyes the second Elias had made himself comfortable. Now, he was settling both hands on Elias’ hips and giving him a smile that meant only one thing to him.

Elias had won this round.

Smirking, because he wasn’t about to give up flaunting the glee of knowing he had won, Elias went to work. In all honesty, it wasn’t _that_ bad. The hair had been cut straight across, that much was without question, but it had grown out, and now the issue laid in the fact that Peter really _did_ look somewhat like a sheepdog. Between the shaggy hair covering his eyes and the disarming smile, he truly did remind Elias of the breed.

It didn’t take long to fix that. In a few minutes Elias was standing up, still straddling Peter, to reach over him and drop the shears back into their case, the comb next to it, with a quiet clatter.

Then he settled right back down again.

“That’s _much_ better,” he commented, pulling the towel from Peter’s shoulders. He would regret it, in the morning, when he remembered the mess he’d have to clean up, but right now he dropped the towel, cut hair and all, onto the floor behind Peter’s chair.

If he was surprised by this, Peter didn’t show it. He was far too confidently pulling Elias in closer with those big hands on his thighs.

They’d known each other far too long and much too intimately for him to be surprised.

“Oh? Am I acceptable to you again, Mr. Bouchard?”

Elias hummed, making a show of looking Peter over while he wrapped his arms around his shoulders. “You’ll do,” he answered, finally, fingers toying with the freshly cut ends at the back of Peter’s neck.

“Is that it?” Peter asked. His voice was low, meant only for Elias, and he _hated_ the thrill it gave him. “Don’t suppose there’s anything I could do to raise that assessment, is there?”

Peter’s hands drifted, running up his thighs and over his hips, cupping his arse and pulling him in. The action had a few effects. First, it reminded Elias that Peter was wearing nothing – _nothing_ – but the soft pants he’d come to the kitchen in, while Elias himself was still essentially fully dressed from the day, the only change being that he’d taken off his jacket and pulled his shirt out of his belt after rolling the sleeves. On top of that, he’d added to it, with the apron he was still wearing, hiked up between the two of them.

The second thing Peter’s action did was remind Elias that he’d been away for seven months. Seven months with only the occasional phone call.

Right at that moment, it didn’t matter that, technically, to Elias, seven months wasn’t much. He was feeling the weight of every damn day.

Perhaps due to all that, Elias didn’t answer with words. He answered with a kiss, hard and demanding, pushing himself forward against Peter until it felt like there wasn’t an inch between them. It was something Peter had expected, by the way he held on to Elias, the way he kissed him back. They had a shorthand that was unique to them and neither of them seemed to forget it, however long they’d been apart.

Elias didn’t know how long Peter planned to stay this time, didn’t intend to ask. He _would_ , however, make the best of it, starting here.

Starting with shifting in Peter’s lap and _feeling_ him groan. With tightening his fingers in Peter’s hair and biting at his lip when Peter rocked up against him. With Peter growling, “you’re wearing too many damn clothes.”

Elias vaguely remembered telling Peter to do _something about it, then_ , and then he was. Elias didn’t have the chance to think before Peter was guiding him back off his lap. He had half a mind to untie the apron and drop it in the kitchen doorway before Peter was pushing him through the house, Elias pulling him along at the same time. Down the hallway, past the bedroom door, and then, back, onto the bed.

On his back, with Peter’s practised sailor’s hands making quick work of his belt and then his slacks. On his back, watching Peter rid himself of the last piece of clothing he had on.

In a few moments, it was like the last seven months were gone. There was nothing but the two of them and this bed, as Peter climbed over him.

“Your hair really _does_ look better,” Elias commented, grinning sharp and pleased as Peter settled between his legs.

“Still full of jokes, are you, little man?” Peter asked, taking Elias in hand, clearly enjoying the way Elias pushed up into his palm, shameless. “Let’s see if I can’t do something about that.”

And he did.

By the time they finally settled in to sleep, Elias’ head pillowed on Peter’s chest, the last few months seemed a distant and unimportant memory. Especially when compared to this first evening back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you'd like to come yell at/with me about The Magnus Archives and other nonsense, you can find me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/slamncram)


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